Tottenham are looking for a number 10 and a new senior centre-back in the transfer window to help bolster Thomas Frank's squad, football.london understands.
Spurs have signed winger Mohammed Kudus and anchorman Joao Palhinha so far this window from West Ham and Bayern Munich respectively, the latter on loan with an option to buy. They also brought in 20-year-old Japanese centre-back Koto Takai from Kawasaki Frontale.
Tottenham's need for another advanced playmaker was clear before James Maddison's knee injury on Sunday in Seoul, which is in the same knee that caused him to miss three months of action this year. Frank said afterwards that the initial thoughts were that this was a bad injury.
Spurs had previously attempted to sign Morgan Gibbs-White from Nottingham Forest only for that to fall through and the 25-year-old sign a new contract with the Midlands side despite being keen on the move to north London.
football.london understands that Tottenham are confident they will have the funds to carry out their transfer plans this summer, with Frank prioritising both that central attacking playmaker and another centre-back with a good level of experience to bolster the Dane's options in the backline.
Of course with any transfer window, other unexpected opportunities can arise but the main reason for the centre-back need is that Spurs' first choice centre-backs Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven have both missed key spells through injury in the past two campaigns. Last season, with the north London club having 60 games to play, Romero was only available to play in 26 of them and Van de Ven just 22.
There is also Radu Dragusin, who is on his way back from a cruciate ligament injury and it may some time before the Romanian gets back to full fitness and sharpness when he is able to return to full training.
That leaves Frank with Kevin Danso as the only other senior centre-back, while left-back Ben Davies can also play in the position and the new head coach will fear facing a similar season to his predecessor Ange Postecoglou in needing to play teenage midfielder Archie Gray in an unfamiliar role as a centre-back for long periods.
There is Takai and also 18-year-old Croatian defender Luka Vuskovic. football.london reported this week that after Frank had assessed his squad in recent weeks, Vuskovic was among of group of young players made available for loan by Spurs, which includes Jamie Donley, Will Lankshear, George Abbott, Yang Min-hyeok, Tyrese Hall, Alfie Devine and Dane Scarlett, to get them regular minutes to hasten their development.
With Vuskovic, a long line of clubs have been interested in loaning him, but with some looking for an option to buy which Spurs flat out refused. That has left five clubs circling the Croatian for a straight loan, including Hamburg who have a long-standing interest in the teenage centre-back.
Takai, who is currently out with plantar fascia, remains part of the first team squad and his situation will be assessed later in the window.
Frank has a history of coaching young players, including his time spent managing the Danish FA's international youth sides and he knows when youngsters are ready or not, having helped develop, among others, former Spurs stars Christian Eriksen and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg as well as Christian Norgaard.
The Tottenham boss is believed to have been keen to bring Norgaard to Spurs this summer after their years together at Brentford as well, but the player had his mind set on a move to Arsenal.
Spurs were keen on reuniting Frank with another Brentford star in Bryan Mbeumo, who was focused on a transfer to Manchester United, while Yoane Wissa remains of interest but Frank is currently happy with Dominic Solanke and Richarlison as his options.
Any key exits in the coming weeks could be replaced although if Richarlison were to depart then it's doubtful Brentford would let yet another key member of their club leave like Wissa after Norgaard and Mbeumo exited on top of Frank and various members of the backroom staff.
Frank also appears to have taken a big shine to Wilson Odobert while working with him in recent weeks and the young Frenchman could be given the chance to try to begin to fill Son Heung-min's considerable boots alongside Mathys Tel while Brennan Johnson can also play on the left, as can Richarlison and Kudus.
While out in Seoul during Spurs' pre-season trip, the new Tottenham head coach told football.london that he is currently not looking for another full-back. He also indicated that Ben Davies will have an important leadership role to play in his squad in the wake of Son's departure to LAFC.
"Yeah, I think so [we have enough full-backs] because right now we have Ben and Spence. I thought [Djed] was very good against Arsenal and did very well against Saka, and I think Ben is a very important player," he said.
"I think his leadership qualities, his character and the way he understands the bigger picture. Everyone has got an ego, but his ego is not too big and that's good. So you understand how much you need to help the team and the younger players.
"He understands when it's for the better for the club, you know, all the actions. So as a player that can speak up and push a bit inside [the team] and they like him, he's a good guy. It makes sense what he says, and he does it in a good way. That's just respect, respect, respect for all players.
"Some win respect by being the top player and Ben is still, by the way, a very good player. So when you do the other things [as well], if you think you win more respect."
Davies has never been part of the club's leadership group before in his 11 years at the club but Frank admitted: "It's definitely something I'm thinking about, yeah, I will say it that way."
Frank also indicated that he expects the club to keep Rodrigo Bentancur with a new contract as he is now in the final 11 months of his deal at Spurs.
"I was pretty sure he would be a key player [before I started working with him], so that's not been a surprise. That's a player, of course I think is important for the future," he said.
An important aspect of the transfer window for Frank is to get the processes involved down to a streamlined state with technical director Johan Lange and head of scouting Rob Mackenzie like he had it at Brentford, albeit after years at the helm.
"Obviously we are signing players here where the processes in Brentford, I'm not saying they were better, I think they're very good," said the head coach. "I think that Johan and his team is doing a top job, top, but just for them to understand what I'm looking for, so that needs to be aligned.
"At Brentford it was aligned (clicks fingers). 'I want that', 'OK, fine', we look at it, boom, and now I need to use more time with Johan and Rob and these guys and then we make presentations. 'No, no, no, I need that instead', so all that is just extra hours every day."
The Dane believes the key is to get his team to a point where the players are delivering his football instinctively to the highest possible level and that means getting players, current or new, to take it there.
"We try to recruit the right players, try to get to know the team, try to get all the principles in," he said, "As an example, I was very, very happy with the first half against Arsenal [in Hong Kong], because I think there was a lot of the elements that I want to get into a team and it looked okay in sync, without being completely free floating, but a lot of the principles, so that's a lot of hard work.
"Then as we go through the transfer window, that's why we need the next step with players that maybe need to beat them."
So how close is the current Tottenham squad to what Frank wants it to be in this transfer window?
"I think that's difficult. I think that there's no doubt that I want, how can I say this, a big enough, small enough squad! You know what I mean?" he told football.london. "It needs to be big enough and robust enough to compete in all four tournaments because that's extremely important, but I can't have too many players.
"It's just so difficult to keep everyone happy, it is almost impossible, and then we also want to see if we can add in enough quality, but again, we don't want to sign players we don't think can really improve the squad.
"Then I would rather wait to have the right talented players. I'm not here for the short term fix. I want to build something that can last, so we need to think longer term, but of course we need to compete now. That's my thought process."